Continuum Festival Featuring Z Space and Chhandam School of Kathak

Published April 19, 2019•Updated on April 19, 2019 at 12:18 pm

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Z Space and The Chhandam School of Kathak along with Leela Dance, presents Continuum, a two-day festival of North Indian classical music and dance.

Continuum represents a showcase of world art at its pinnacle, immersing audiences into India’s rich, soulful classical music and captivating kathak dance. Continuum shines a spotlight on a new generation of young masters who bring a fresh lens, contemporary voice, and new dimension to these ancient art forms.

Dance Collective, says “The great masters of our elders’ generation are leaving us every day. Artists like the Late Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, Pandit Ravi Shankar, Pandit Chitresh Das, and many others planted deep seeds in the West, especially the Bay Area, for Indian classical art to flourish. With this festival we wanted to highlight the next generation of artists who those very masters have passed the torch to and who are now bravely blazing new frontiers. We want to show that these legacies are more than just surviving – they are relevant, vibrant, and in an important moment of flux. Hence we chose the name Continuum.”

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The festival is focusing on featuring musicians and dancers in solo performances, the apex of classical Indian art. Rina Mehta, also an artistic leader of Chhandam and founding artist of Leela Dance Collective, says “Increasingly we have been seeing Indian classical music and dance being presented in short-form or ensemble work, positioning it for changing audiences and a western framework. But we feel it is crucial at this moment in time that audiences experience these art forms in their raw and unadulterated form. The tour-de-force solo is the only platform that displays the full depth and breadth of these forms - everything from its connection to ancient Indian philosophies to its musical and rhythmic sophistication to its dynamic and playful improvisation with live musicians.”

The festival is focusing on featuring musicians and dancers in solo performances, the apex of classical Indian art. Artists like the Late Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, Pandit Ravi Shankar, Pandit Chitresh Das, and many others planted deep seeds in the West, especially the Bay Area, for Indian classical art to flourish.

The festival is also rare in its formatting as each of the four distinct concerts are a double bill of a music solo and a kathak dance solo, featuring a different solo instrument in each show - sitar, violin, bansuri (Indian flute), tabla, and vocals.